Personal Reflections

I'm Done Experimenting

My legitimate, actual desk where I brew legitimate, actual tea.

TLDR: It's not worth it.

...

Icarus, son of the master craftsman Daedalus, flew too close to the sun. If you don't know the story, basically a chain of events happen in Greek mythology that lead to Daedalus and his son Icarus being trapped in the top of a tower. Being a genius master craftsman, Daedalus crafts a pair of wax wings for each of them but warns not to fly too close to the water beneath or the sun above, for fear that the humidity from the water or the heat of the sun would compromise the wings and prevent their escape; or worse, enable their death.

Spoiler alert: Icarus gets prideful and flys up near the sun, wax melts, and he falls to his death in the ocean.

Why is this at all relevant...

Well, I believe in some ways I might have displayed a bit of Icarus.

If you know anything about my journey you likely know I've gone through many a "water spiral" on my so called "water saga" (so dubbed by onlookers). You may or may not know I've had some storage mishaps on the road to trying to achieve a sustainable, budget eco-chamber. I've spent a lot of time trying to "solve" tea in a Western mindset, like tons and tons of folks on the online Discord servers.

It's something of a mind virus almost. I mean no disrespect, if that's how you want to live your tea life and it genuinely brings you joy then I say full steam ahead. I just know from experience and conversations that is definitely not what many people want to do but they end up finding themselves in that trench a couple years in and wonder "wait, how'd I get here?"

I'm writing this in part to process my own journey, and in part to help set you free if that just struck a chord.

Why this happens...

I think we, in the West, get bored and/or interested in other cultures and then when the tea person finds themselves starting to become mesmerized by the little clay pots and the cultural vibes of the ritual and meditative nature behind it all: in my experience they tend to dive in full speed and learn how to swim while they're in the deep end.

That's cool, actually; I really think that is a tremendous way to learn a hobby, skill, or language—full immersion. Where I think it can go astray is getting sucked in to all the opinions, and the purchases, and the experiments.

What do you really want your tea life to look and feel like?

Do you want it to look like notebooks and spreadsheets and feel like work or a research station? Maybe you do idk, I sure don't.

Wouldn't you rather it look like little pots you love, nice pretty gaiwans, simple tea trays, wooden accessories and accent pieces, incense nearby, and a good instrumental Spotify playlist coming through some nice headphones or nearby speakers at a pleasant, contemplative volume? I would. So, I've done away with the experimentation and testing. I'm done using those words for the most part.

What does tea mean to you?

Tea, to me, is a way to escape the world. It's a way to reconnect with myself, reconnect with history, discover lost things, practice intentionalism, slow down, be part of a culture I am fascinated by, bridge the gap between where I live and where I want to live, and so much more.

None of that is symbolic of experimentation and tests. I hate the way the western medical system makes you go through a battery of tests before you get told "oh shit sorry we actually didn't know what the problem was before but yeah no we still don't, that'll be $48,563 but you can setup a payment plan, what's your insurance again?"

Here's what happened in my life, this is lived experience:

Tea is cool, I like Pu'er, let's go down that rabbit hole — (explores) — oh yeah this is pretty cool, I have some now and would love some more, I should figure out my storage.

Reads blogs, tries stuff, gets progressively more greedy and experimental, hates the process the whole time, increasingly so, good results eventually go bad or have a mishap, I detach from tea for a while.

Or how about this one:

Yixing is so cool, I love all these cute little pots, clay is really beautiful in its own way, what a good aesthetic, I want to try some and understand it — (tries some to understand it) — oh hey yeah this is really cool, really good tea too, I like what this clay does to the tea, more than gaiwan actually, something about this just...does it for me, I think I'll go deeper.

Reads blogs, listens to other people, buys pots, sells pots, buys more pots, crawls foreign auctions, runs lots of tests, tries to see what each clay "does" as if it works that way, gets indoctrinated, experiences and hears conflicting evidences and stances, de-indoctrinates, has a shit ton of pots, still wants more, never satisfied and having increasingly less confidence in understanding and increasingly more burden to "try everything in them all", crashes out, detaches from tea again.

We already mentioned it so how about the water?

Yep, water is bad here, I gotta get this sorted out so I can have stable and predictable sessions, I'll talk to these two, they'll know what to do — (talks, tries) — oh yeah, big big difference, that's the way, water man, game changer; hey you know what...I bet I could make it even better!

Insert another long paragraph about how things went astray...just read the rest of the water articles on the site...

Remember Icarus? Father, master crafter, wax wings, escape from prison, flys to close to the sun, wings melt, falls, dies. The analogy falls apart at a certain point, the lesson is more about hubris...

But I think, in a manner of speaking, I saw some good early results, got greedy, and flew too close to the sun. I thought I could master storage, decipher clay, and grasp hold of water itself.

In the end, which is really the middle (life is long, I'm relatively young), other more passionate and qualified individuals became the leading voices on storage, clay, and water in my circles and beyond. And that's ok. We will not all be experts, and if we are, we cannot be experts in everything.

I'm going to take some time to recalibrate and decide what I want to be an expert in and go from there. I'm much more often recently asking questions more along the lines of "Why?" as opposed to "What?".

I think each of my little mini-journeys started out well. What if instead, they went something like this:

Tea is cool, I like Pu'er, let's go down that rabbit hole — (explores) — oh yeah this is pretty cool, I have some now and would love some more, I should figure out my storage.

Read up, learn, try a couple more calculated interventions with more community basis and evidence, go a little lower risk, then just - ride that out if it's producing enjoyable, drinkable tea; then just go deeper into tea and relationships.

Read up, learn, try a pot, why don't we sit with *this pot and learn *this pot for a while, ok I think I get it, let's try another one, maybe over here this time, I sort of know already I want this time period and this type of clay for roughly these reasons and they seem to be somewhat validated by at least some folks "in the know", let's do that, ok now let's learn *this pot, I think I'll skip the "I just replaced my doomscrolling and shopping addiction with foreign auction sites for a while" phase, and I'm not really interested in losing my enjoyment for tea over tasting a bunch of subpar sessions in the pursuit of "understanding clay", let's just let that come with time.

Good thing that's sorted, let's make sure it stays that way and only go down that ditch again if we really need to...gotta keep the tea tasting good.
(I needed to, and did, and am glad I did)

That seems to me like a much better path. More peaceful, more experiential as opposed to experimental, more relational, with others and self...

I've spent years asking how to make tea better.
I'm going to spend the next few enjoying it.